


The Incident of the Disappearing Man

by JohnandSherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: The night before John's wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 13:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11291583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnandSherlock/pseuds/JohnandSherlock
Summary: The night before John's wedding, in the face of having to disappear into the background of John's life, Sherlock thinks about all that went unsaid and all the wasted opportunities.





	The Incident of the Disappearing Man

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is my first work on here, please please please comment and let me know what yout think. Feedback is very much appreciated! Thank so much for reading.

Sherlock fought sleep, slouching like a puppet without strings in his battered, thread bare chair forcing his unwilling mind to focus on the turbulent sea of torn and crumpled pages laying limply on his lap, whispering clues about a case he was using to calm his roaring mind, a mind determined to take flight despite the heavy, tired eyes that each passing minute added weight to. He was tired, so, so tired- but sleep wasn’t an option. Not yet. Sleep would bring his fitful mind from the case and into the realm of emotions, more specifically, the emotions he felt for John and he wanted those to disappear.  
Feelings stabbed him like a dull knife. He usually resorted to a case, taking refuge in thinking because he understood it. This time thinking would cause emotion. If he went to bed and allowed those weighted eyes to fall closed, he’d think of John. That couldn’t be happen. Tomorrow John was getting married to Mary, he belonged in someone else’s thoughts. Every hope Sherlock had held disappeared and he didn’t want a reminder.  
John, John, John, pulsing through Sherlock’s veins- part of his system. Sitting in that tattered chair his eyes avoided John’s empty one. He wondered what John would be doing and threw a glance at his watch. Half three in the morning, he chuckled, a smile broke through his cold face. John would be wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets, mumbling in his peaceful sleep. Sherlock knew from their twin room during the Baskerville case that John became an adorable little profiterole of blanket and still managed to find the room to cold, that he mumbled and drooled like a little child. John tried to be tough but when he slept you saw his softness. Sherlock’s chances of seeing that again had disappeared. A part of him disappeared with it. He hadn’t realised until after the Fall that he believed that he and John would become something more than an undefined puzzle until Mary had come along and hope had disappeared. It wasn’t just his hope that disappeared with John but his fight against a version of himself John helped him overcome.  
His gaze travelled through the room. It seemed unfamiliar. The quirky den of 221b had always comforted him, because it had been the place he shared with John. It had been filled with John’s pitchy humming, his ridiculous jumpers, bubbling laughter, words of encouragement- until he had chosen someone else and moved out. The fat became a very different place. The flat felt empty, like a barren dessert Sherlock stumbled through in search of water that wasn’t there. Even the comfort of home had disappeared. He needed a distraction.  
No, you need John.  
Images of John and Mary flashed before his eyes like a nightmare. They smiled at one another. They kissed- completely consumed by one another. The image ate at him like a cancer. A scream escaped him of its own accord like that of a dying beast. Everything was disappearing. He kicked John’s chair, pushing it away, punishing it the way he wanted to punish himself for everything; for the fact that he was selfish enough to want John, for feeling, for driving John away the moment he’d jumped from Bart’s hospital out of sheer stupidity- no, not stupidity. There was no choice but to fake his death. If he hadn’t John would have died. That was the cruellest part. Everything was disappearing and it was all his fault.  
All his life he’d carefully constructed a wall, making feelings disappear. Brick by brick he’d built it. He’d seen emotion as a barrier that prevented work. Work had always been the oxygen in his system. He had vowed against caring, John had slipped through the cracks. He cared for Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Molly, but John was different. Being with John was like being filled with oxygen after a lifetime in airless dark. Sherlock was the disappearing ship John had saved. No one else had sat patiently with Sherlock when he’d said something that wasn’t socially acceptable, made him tea whilst he sat at his microscope at 5am. People hung around Sherlock because they needed him to solve their problems, he’d solved their petty problems as easily as breathing yet in the cruellest form of torture he couldn’t solve his own. John had solved his problems. He understood him, but he had disappeared.  
Sherlock fell to his knees and started to sob. Tears blinded him. Resting his head in John’s chair, he thought about all that had gone unsaid and disappeared into nothingness. He’d realised a long time ago that what he felt for John put friendship to shame. It had happened accidentally, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened but he did know that all his life he had wanted to disappear but John had helped him step into the light and now he didn’t want to disappear, yet that’s what he would do at John’s wedding. He’d attend, pretend to be happy for John, give his speech and disappear into the background of John’s life. He had to disappear into the background so that John would be happy without the knowledge that his best friend was hopelessly and unimaginably in love with him.  
He forced himself to see sense. In the chaos of his mind few certainties existed, but he was certain that any hope of John loving him had disappeared. John couldn’t love someone he deemed an emotionless machine who disregarded all that had been between them by faking his own death. Telling John of his feelings was illogical and ludicrous. So, he pried himself off the floor and slowly stood, his face tear stained. He took a deep breath. He did it again.  
There was a speech that needed practicing. Sherlock resolved to make the best of the following day. John’s happiness was more important to him than his own life so his own feelings would have to disappear.


End file.
